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The official difficulty level matters, and the faction you play as matters, but the biggest factor in any given game of Civ V is how good your starting position is. A crap one can put you on the backfoot for the entire game, while a great one can catapult you into world domination by the medieval era. Also, food is really genuinely the most important resource. Settle on places with a lot of food: grasslands and rivers, or floodplains. Generally, unless you're playing on a map where sea power is important, you shouldn't make coastal cities unless they have at least 2 sea resources nearby--and that's the absolute minimum. If you feel like an easy game, you should try the Inca on a highlands map, or the Dutch on Sandstorm. Korea and Babylon both have buffs to science. China and Siam both indirectly buff science through their unique buildings. India rewards going tall and has a bias towards starting in grassland areas, so they're good for going tall too.
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Apr 24, 2014 12:07
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Stevefin posted:Though yes science is the go to and easy way to win. I find that it is the most boring way to play, all you will be doing is sitting on four mega cities with enough troops to starve off attacks till you win All the wins have terrible problems. Some wins are interesting to pull off (like Culture) but the only time a win is exciting is when another win is creeping up and threatening to pull the rug out from your runaway victory (a Science victory is a lot of fun then, even after you've spent 100 turns sitting on your arse min-maxing your nerds). And that's regardless of what win you're going for - even Culture can be boring when you see that nobody else is trying for it and all the other victory types are miles behind. In my view, the mechanics need to be designed in such a way that either (A) individual players have an easy way to catch up with a runaway or (B) players can co-operate to catch up with or drag back the runaway, either by actively interfering or by withdrawing some sort of consent. Even in the case of a zero-sum victory type (such as Domination or Diplomatic) where a snowballing mechanic is actually a good thing (lest the victory become impossible to achieve), there needs to be a decent-sized and very noticeable window during which the runaway can be reigned in via player co-operation before it becomes truly unstoppable. The game already has plenty of mechanics that do this, I think, but most of them are not well implemented because the AI players are too dumb to use them, or because they're too weak, or they're too strong. In many cases the "too strong" is somewhat countered by the AI being too dumb to use them. But it's evident in an MP game where everyone is on the ball: a Culture victory is basically impossible and a Diplomatic victory is very difficult. Science is the only win which isn't zero-sum; it's a race. Espionage is a good catch-up mechanic and so is Scholars of Residence, which I like for its reliance on co-operation but dislike for its simplicity. That said it still does the job, and the trade system helps too by bleeding excess science to where it's needed. Overall I'd say these mechanics work in MP because it's easy for players to level the playing field, but in SP the AI is simply far, far too dumb and this makes the mechanics ineffective (even when the AI gets a poo poo-load more spies to make up for it). And the need for aluminium adds an extra spin to it, though the recycling centre makes the requirement almost obsolete. It would be a more fun victory type, I think, if acquiring aluminium via trade or city-state ally or conquest were essential. Domination is pure zero-sum: to make a gain someone else has to lose out. So a snowballing mechanic is needed to prevent endless stalemate. If someone takes 5 capitals and has 2 more capitals to go, then the scales shouldn't be deliberately tipped against them at that stage. If anything it should be tipped in their favour - for example by granting victory for controlling 75% of the world's land or population (I believe Civ 4 did something like this). For that reason I think the Standing Army tax is pointless, and not because it's barely effective - it's just a bad concept. The global happiness system is also designed to reign in conquest and I think that's a terrible system. There's already an anti-snowballing mechanic for Domination - a player making massive conquests should ring alarm bells and the other players can unite against them. As usual, the AI is dumb as bricks when it comes to this: it cowers in fear, palms off its cities to the guy invading for 10 turns of peace, and despite all this won't let go of whatever petty squabbles it has with others. I have two problems with Domination besides this: for SP it's pretty much impossible for the AI to win one, and for both SP and MP very little can be done about early conquests and they usually set up the conqueror with big production advantages which snowball quickly beyond the opposing power of a coalition, especially if the conqueror has a geographical advantage like his own continent. I'd like to see a mechanic which neuters such early snowballing but which doesn't put a stop to later snowballing, if that makes sense. Diplomacy is zero-sum too, in that there is a fixed number of delegates to go after, though this fixed number does increase. The problem with the mechanics in the Diplomacy victory is that it's too easy to win against the AI (because the AI can't tell its face from its arse) and too hard to win against humans (because the snow-balling measures are too weak and the anti-runaway measures too strong). If the player just gets a plurality, then he at least gets the consolation prize of two extra delegates, which enhances the chances of getting a plurality next time and enhances the chance of getting an outright win. But buying city-states is too easy for a coalition of humans and the plurality can easily pass between humans forever, unless someone happens to be pissing gold out of every orifice. In contrast, the AI is too dumb to notice an impending Diplomatic victory and won't bother using its vast reserves of ill-gotten gold to undermine the human player (even if it did, it wouldn't be a satisfying solution). Not sure exactly how I would fix that one for MP, but I'd start with making a plurality more rewarding and reducing the power of buying influence with gold. Culture is an odd one. It's kind of zero-sum, but in a weird way. I've not had a lot of experience with it but I quite like the way it works in SP - it seems balanced. In MP though, it seems far too hard to achieve, or at least too hard to achieve in a timescale that is on a par with other victory types. This seems to be because it's too easy for someone to ramp up their culture production. I think a good snowballing measure in this one would be: if your tourism overpowers one guy's culture, then you get a bonus to your tourism on everyone else. That way, every time you tick someone of your list, the remaining players become easier and easier to beat, and ramping up their culture production won't help them. There ought to be some sort of way to have these different victory types catch up with each other, too - not just players catching up with each other for a given victory type. Have no idea how that might be implemented, but maybe for example: across-the-board science or tourism output when someone approaches a different victory? Anyway that turned into a bit of a thinkpost there, and I'm sure I've said a lot of bollocks (except for "the AI is too dumb", a universal truth) Would be interested in thoughts, though. Microplastics fucked around with this message at 12:26 on Apr 24, 2014 |
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Apr 24, 2014 12:13
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twistedmentat posted:Man, either the first Prince game was a fluke and I'm just terrible, or the game legit hates me, because I've had to abandon every game so far at Prince because some Empire always leads everyone by such a huge margin that there's no way to win. The last game I played Siam had a huge continent all to itself, and filled it with cities and pumped out wonders like crazy. Post screenshots, because you could be doing something very wrong and we could point out what.
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Apr 24, 2014 12:27
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twistedmentat posted:Man, either the first Prince game was a fluke and I'm just terrible, or the game legit hates me, because I've had to abandon every game so far at Prince because some Empire always leads everyone by such a huge margin that there's no way to win. The last game I played Siam had a huge continent all to itself, and filled it with cities and pumped out wonders like crazy. I'm going to echo the others and say you probably should be focusing on food more. When I play I'm almost always getting Writing/Libraries/National College later than I planned/wanted, but I always manage to stay well ahead of the AI on tech on Prince (though I only really play Prince in multiplayer) simply by focusing on getting a few really good, high growth cities. I do feel like it's something that you just sort of learn to feel out though.
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Apr 24, 2014 12:29
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Yeah I do get a lot of that. have not played a multiplayer game however there does not seem to be many around that are not locked for groups The AI is dumb, I have had some strange things where the AI seems to know what it is doing, or least given the illusion that it is. had a game as japan that I had a horrible start, all trunda, but 5 fishing boats of the coasts made it sound doable, back on thinking I should of just restarted, but than I would of not seen Greece win the game at the edge of their defeat due to his city state bonuses. he also started in the best, and worst spot possible, being extremely rich in resources of all kinds but having one half of the civs to his west, the other half to his east, and me on trunda to his south. He ended up making a upside down T boarder, being just long enough that A player would not really do as it would require too many cities but the AI just enough and littered with good land to bread crumb him to do so, locking me in trunda for most of the game and dictating the control of city states with his east and west powers. Long story short congress forms, Greece finds everything thanks to their sweet sweet spot, they hold onto the majority of the power in congress till the second Tier opens up, and suddently the other AI takes notice, Greece has double all their votes combined and ranked number one in military power causes the AI and halt any waring on a 1v1 scale. And than it happens, normally I amd hearing this AI hates this AI, that AI wars that AI, after the direct advantaged Greece showed to the world all of that stopped, one vote goes buy, greece bans something and denies something else, another, same thing, ect ect and than the countdown starts for Greece to win via diplo through congress, The AI has been very quiet besides some public friendship shouts, which I should of taken notice of. cause of what happened next Next turn every civ in the game bare me denounces Greece all at once in a single turn. I also ended up doing so as it was the strangest event I have ever seen. I than get requests to go to war against Greece. Now the deal between me and Greece was a love/hate type of deal. I hated it, but for my small nation I needed him, the trunda land was very bare. I had hammers, and went with the trunda food boost with religion, however my land sucked when it came to everything else. no horses, no iron, ect, which I ended up relying on Greece for that, since he had so much, in the 10's of each, he was not too strict with letting some go, even if it would be used against him in time. Bows are nice and all. but they stuck on the offensive and with hills on the offensive, so I needed horse mean, needed samurais, needed siege engines, as the bows just had the disadvantage here. I joined the Ai's offer, everyone declares war, Its a really long and bloody war, Greece is down to one city and its to the wire to the count down. while it may have been some what more logical to go after the city states, There was not enough time to siege all we needed to cause at least a draw in the amount of time. His city is down to a silver of health, all we need is just one melee unit...but none are in range, and Greece wins. again all of that could of been avoided if I did the smart thing and just started a new game, But than I would of never seen this happen.
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Apr 24, 2014 13:08
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I've played a lot of civ but I've never seen on CS declare war on another unilaterally. That happened to me last night. I'm allies with Antwerp and Valetta to my north. Hit next turn, all of a sudden a bunch of Vallettan ships swarm in on Antwerp. I see no option in the CS menu to make them stop nor is there anything in the Diplomacy screen. Now every turn I just watch my CS allies trade punches. It's the weirdest drat thing.
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Apr 24, 2014 14:02
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Bloodly posted:Also prioritise food. Food translates directly into science. Turning on manual specialist control is a huge help here. Left to its own devices, the city manager AI will throttle your growth by assigning useless engineer and merchant specialists. Generally you just want scientists and artist-types (late in the game when you have giant cities using most of their available tiles and start picking up bonuses to specialists it may be worth it to just fill everything.) Managing your own specialists does mean more micro, but it's fairly straightforward and there's generally not a lot of reason to constantly fiddle with specialist allocation, and it will give you a big leg up over just letting the AI assign specialists.
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Apr 24, 2014 14:46
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Something else to keep in mind re: science is that each new city you settle increases your tech and policy costs by 5%. So generally you want to settle 3-4 cities as soon as you can reasonably manage and then not settle any more ever. If you're going Conquest, puppeting cities is just fine and you'll probably eventually want to annex a few just to have remote bases where you can rushbuy more units, but your core empire should be small and tall. In my games I'm lucky to get 3 good city sites before being boxed in by AIs that I'm not ready to war with yet. That's still plenty to win on Emperor though.
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Apr 24, 2014 15:07
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Gabriel Pope posted:Turning on manual specialist control is a huge help here. Left to its own devices, the city manager AI will throttle your growth by assigning useless engineer and merchant specialists. Generally you just want scientists and artist-types (late in the game when you have giant cities using most of their available tiles and start picking up bonuses to specialists it may be worth it to just fill everything.) Managing your own specialists does mean more micro, but it's fairly straightforward and there's generally not a lot of reason to constantly fiddle with specialist allocation, and it will give you a big leg up over just letting the AI assign specialists. You just have to remember to assign new ones when you build a new science specialist building. I always kick myself when I forget.
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Apr 24, 2014 15:24
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This is a dumb question but I've only just got in to this game and have seen a few mentions of "Food translates directly into science.". Could someone spell that out for the mentally challenged currently sat at work? Usage of crayon pictures optional.
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Apr 24, 2014 15:26
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Fwoderwick posted:This is a dumb question but I've only just got in to this game and have seen a few mentions of "Food translates directly into science.". Could someone spell that out for the mentally challenged currently sat at work? Usage of crayon pictures optional. Easiest way to express is that Library, the first science building, gives +1 Beaker (Science) for every 2 Citizens (Which you get by having lots of food). There's lots of other examples but this is the bedrock, you got other stuff like more food = more specialists because specialists consume a lot of food. Essentially if you give yourself a lot of food you'll have a big enough population that they can do just about anything.
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Apr 24, 2014 15:31
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RagnarokAngel posted:Easiest way to express is that Library, the first science building, gives +1 Beaker (Science) for every 2 Citizens (Which you get by having lots of food). There's lots of other examples but this is the bedrock, you got other stuff like more food = more specialists because specialists consume a lot of food. An even easier way to express it is that every citizen, without any buildings, techs, or policies gives you 1 beaker.
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Apr 24, 2014 15:34
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But what ties all this together is Universities and the National College. These give a % modifier to Science produced by your cities. So to maximise this, you want huge cities.
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Apr 24, 2014 15:54
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Poopy Palpy posted:An even easier way to express it is that every citizen, without any buildings, techs, or policies gives you 1 beaker. These effects snowball as well. +50% from National College, +33% from Universites, +50% from research labs, +17% from Rationalism policy means that base, with no Observatory, academies, specialists, or trading posts, you make (1+.5+.5)(1+.5+.5+.33+.17)=5 science per citizen at end game. With an observatory, it becomes 6.
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Apr 24, 2014 15:57
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Ah I see, thanks all. There was a definite sense of too much information on my first playthrough so stuff like this got missed.
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Apr 24, 2014 15:59
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And on top of that, more population means you can more effectively run specialists, specifically science specialists, which are yet more direct science (subject to all those multipliers) and contribute to your making GBS threads out Great Scientists, which early on can be planted for an academy for a snowballing cumulative benefit, and later can be popped for a one-time huge sum of science.
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Apr 24, 2014 16:03
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Vil posted:And on top of that, more population means you can more effectively run specialists, specifically science specialists, which are yet more direct science (subject to all those multipliers) and contribute to your making GBS threads out Great Scientists, which early on can be planted for an academy for a snowballing cumulative benefit, and later can be popped for a one-time huge sum of science. Yeah I only realised right at the end that specialists can be planted and had simply been using all my specialists as 1 off boosts. I did have a couple of cities that I designated Good At Science and so had been placing specialists there, but sounds like I probably want to do that throughout as long as it's not overly detrimental to food production.
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Apr 24, 2014 16:19
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Fwoderwick posted:Yeah I only realised right at the end that specialists can be planted and had simply been using all my specialists as 1 off boosts. I did have a couple of cities that I designated Good At Science and so had been placing specialists there, but sounds like I probably want to do that throughout as long as it's not overly detrimental to food production. Are you confusing specialists with great people? Great people are units on the map that are automatically generated at a rate depending on your buildings/policies/whatnot and can usually be used to build tile improvements, great works, found religion, bolster military, ect. Specialists are citizens in your cities that, instead of working your farms, mines and trading posts, sit in buildings and wonders with "specialist slots" and generate extra science/culture/gold ect.
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Apr 24, 2014 18:19
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NZAmoeba posted:Post screenshots, because you could be doing something very wrong and we could point out what. This is almost certainly whats going on. What screenshots would be needed to autopsy my game? And yea, I try to keep sceience at a high level, also culture, and food. I tend to go for food over production. The game I most recently gave up on with the monster Siam was with Poland. I started off completely surrounded by jungle. This is what It looked like when i gave up http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/3281180234018827501/1B1F0CDACDD03D7A385FC0EC41F4B4B1CBCBBD39/ The Capital http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/3281180234018828992/D0F40E7724F5336C3ECF8630DAB3B8B57574F46E/ Second best city http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/3281180234018830493/0E10E61FC0F70F5F8AF60A5C7077C041C5992B4F/ Demographics http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/3281180234018835780/F0B6899EB66CCA87B1132B496C686746B88622D6/ Social policies http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/3281180234018831790/164D47EAFC781A5D318982FAFA55A3BA680CA5C1/ Can I just say how much I hate it when AI civs have to tell you how much they like/dislike your resolution? Its really annoying waiting for 12 different leaders to pop up and say "you make me very angry wanting to make wonders worth more culture!". twistedmentat fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Apr 24, 2014 |
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Apr 24, 2014 19:51
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Christo posted:Are you confusing specialists with great people? Great people are units on the map that are automatically generated at a rate depending on your buildings/policies/whatnot and can usually be used to build tile improvements, great works, found religion, bolster military, ect. Specialists are citizens in your cities that, instead of working your farms, mines and trading posts, sit in buildings and wonders with "specialist slots" and generate extra science/culture/gold ect. Nah sorry, just poor memory/lazy post, I meant Great People but thanks for the clarification all the same. Right, next spot of ignorance, would people say it's always possible to piss an AI off enough to declare war on you or can you only ever improve the chances? Haile Selassie was annoying me with his missionary bombing and I wanted to get some use out of the military but never managed to get any higher than a red HOSTILE relationship which swiftly reduced again. I'd amassed a decent sized army at his borders, denied his request that they be removed, built a city right next to his borders, denounced him but was all for nought. The most I can find online on this subject is the effort post reply here and so suppose on reflection I didn't do many of them: http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/8346/how-can-i-go-to-war-without-getting-everyone-else-displeased-in-civilization-v Do your responses to those diplomatic exchanges such as "You are a cultural swine! Yes/No?" or "Yeah sorry about the spy..." have any impact on your relations?
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Apr 24, 2014 19:51
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Fwoderwick posted:Right, next spot of ignorance, would people say it's always possible to piss an AI off enough to declare war on you or can you only ever improve the chances? It's certainly possible to make an AI angry as gently caress at you but unwilling to declare war against you. All you have to do is convince them that you'll grind them into paste the moment they step out of line, i.e. that your military is signifincantly stronger than theirs. So keep your military hidden (and don't be at the top of the demographics screen for soldiers). quote:Do your responses to those diplomatic exchanges such as "You are a cultural swine! Yes/No?" or "Yeah sorry about the spy..." have any impact on your relations? Forgiving them for spying / demanding that they cease spying has an effect (you can see it in the diplo modifiers as "You forgave them for spying" / "You demanded that they stop spying on you!"), but when your options are "Very well" vs. "You'll pay for this in time" as far as I'm aware which you pick has no effect. I think you can also just stack increasingly more ridiculous demands on the AI if your goal is just to piss them off.
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Apr 24, 2014 20:10
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Interesting, I'll bear that in mind next time, thanks. My 4X history is basically the original Civ, Colonization and AC, all of which are a rather more war-forgiving and I always like to get one decent war in when I play these things. However an early skirmish with Japan where I conquered their capital left me a pariah for eternity, freshly denounced every 20 turns. That proved kinda grating to have to deal with for the next several millenia and so if I have to instead be a sneaky bastard to get someone to fight me first then so be it.
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Apr 24, 2014 20:23
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I have been seriously underrating Keshiks this whole time, goddamn.  Played a game as the Mongols the other day where I didn't start out with any horses even vaguely nearby... except for one group of four and another of two at the nearest city-state. Quickly put a small band together to take them over, captured the city on turn 80. Turn 81, every other civ denounces me. Turn 82, half of them declare war, and from there on out, I don't think I had more than 3 consecutive or 15 total turns of peace for the entire remainder of the game, which didn't end until 1950 when I finished off Greece. Even though it was a Pangaea map, I was relatively isolated, with only the Byzantines halfway-nearby, and everyone else separated by a long, thin strip of barren wasteland in the far north, so I only had to deal with occasional Byzantine skirmishes on the home front. By the end, my 3 Keshiks had something stupid like Range, Logistics, and March, and were pretty much unbeatable, with my Horseman/Cavalry only there to actually take the cities. By the end, other civs were fielding Infantry+, but focused Keshik doublefire meant that even they were basically only token forces. I think I'm going to play the Mongols more often.
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Apr 24, 2014 20:36
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Pay a warmonger like Montezuma or Nobunaga to declare war on another civ. Just denounce the guy you paid after he declares war and then play the hero by declaring on him. Win/win!
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Apr 24, 2014 20:38
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twistedmentat posted:This is almost certainly whats going on. Your cities seem too small to me. Was your empire constantly unhappy? Unhappiness, even -1, cuts your growth rate by 1/2. Severe unhappiness (-10 or more) cuts it to 1/4. My guess is that you were expanding at a pretty constant rate and dipping into -1 or -2 unhappiness, instead of waiting until you had a 4+ happiness stocked up to build a new city. That lack of growth will kill you. As for social policies, going for Tradition and Liberty is kind of a waste. Both are designed to accelerate your early game; they lose power the later you take them. A free worker by turn 20 is amazing; a free worker on turn 100 is unnecessary. Pick one, max it out, and move on. Tradition is probably the better choice in most cases, because the free Aqueducts help you get your population snowball going. I would have gone and put my policies in Piety or Patronage instead. Or even Honor, if I was set on world domination.
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Apr 24, 2014 20:57
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Vengarr posted:Tradition is probably the better choice in most cases, because the free Aqueducts help you get your population snowball going. I would have gone and put my policies in Piety or Patronage instead. Or even Honor, if I was set on world domination. Tradition is always the best policy. Forget Liberty exists. There are use cases for it, but it's so much weaker than Tradition that finding those use cases is a task for experts, frankly. After Tradition is maxed out (which should be what you spend your first 6 social policies on), I'd generally recommend popping open Patronage for the decreased influence decay and improved influence from gold; ideally after that you should have Rationalism opened up.
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Apr 24, 2014 21:09
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Pvt.Scott posted:Pay a warmonger like Montezuma or Nobunaga to declare war on another civ. Just denounce the guy you paid after he declares war and then play the hero by declaring on him. Win/win! What a dick move. I'm just going to have to verify this myself to see if it actually works. that's awesome
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Apr 24, 2014 21:20
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twistedmentat posted:This is almost certainly whats going on. I'll mention a few things that stood out to me.
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Apr 24, 2014 21:21
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Yeah, those social policies are a bit of a travesty. Liberty and Aesthetics are doing basically nothing for you. Tradition -> Patronage -> Rationalism is the way to go. It's difficult to tell what's going wrong with your happiness. Try four cities next game instead of six. Remember that being unhappy at all completely stunts your growth, so your aim should be to NEVER go into negative happiness, ever. Prioritise anything that gives happiness - luxuries, buildings, policies. Also, turn the hex map and the resource indicators on (button in the bottom right by the minimap) - it certainly helps me to plan my city sites out. Gort fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Apr 24, 2014 |
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Apr 24, 2014 21:25
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Denouncement is hilarious. I can just picture the egyptians or whoever saying: "THIS GUY IS A MOTHERFUCKER! I FORWARD SETTLED ON HIM AND HE BOUGHT A LOT OF THE LAND UP AROUND HIS CAPITAL! I TRADED WITH HIM UNFAIRLY IN MY FAVOUR! gently caress THIS GUY! I SURROUNDED HIS CITY WITH MY CITIES AND BUILT UP A HUGE ARMY! NOW ALL OF YOU OTHER NATIONS KNOW WHAT A COCKWEASEL THIS GUY IS!"
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Apr 24, 2014 23:07
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twistedmentat posted:The Capital On top of what other people have said (your population is way too low to be competitive), you have to be more selective about which wonders you build. What will Leaning Tower of Pisa really do for you? Your cities are too small to support many specialists, you can't even operate all of your cultural specialists in your capital. Leaning Tower is a decent wonder but if you aren't running specialists, it's nearly useless. You actually have to analyze each wonder and what it can do for your current situation. Prioritizing techs and wonders that boost happiness would have been much better, as it would allow you to grow and be more productive. As far as your happiness goes, try to trade for more resources. Try not to settle extra cities beyond your core 4 unless you're getting luxuries from them or you're sure you can support them long-term without going into unhappiness. And focus on happiness buildings when you're in a borderline position. They're more important than even wonders. Never stop growing under any circumstance.
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Apr 24, 2014 23:16
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I was expending only when I had 4+ happiness, and the only reason I have 6 cities is because the far south one is the only place on that map that had any iron. Large army is there because Dido was going "oh wouldn't it be fun to invade you? Oh just kidding  ", and I had no desire for a war.Every one of those cities has a Colosseum in it, and i have lots of spices and other resources, so I don't know what is going on with my happiness. Even the tool tip just says "X unhappiness from # of cities X unhappiness from specialists" and so on. Growth I have no idea. Again all those cities have Granaries and as you can see there's tons of farms everywhere. I always have this problem. People always talk about tall civs, but I never can build them. Growth always seems to stagnant for me, and I have no idea why. I build things that increase food, I try to keep everyone happy etc. Even on Warlord games my cities would pretty much stop growing at around 20. And i'm doing the same thing. There has to be some mechanic I'm missing about growth. The reason I was producing the tower was because I said to myself, after losing 5 wonders in a row to Siam on the last turn, "if they beat me to this one, i give up". If I wasn't thinking about that, i wouldn't have bothered producing it. I have done the 4 city challenge, but ended up being surrounded by other civs who claimed the territory, and of course, those were the locations iron, coal and oil appeared in. There's always at least 2 civs that expand like a virus in games I play, and the only way to stop them is to expand yourself. I tried to play on medium maps, but i ended up in the same situation but with one or two cities max because the other cives just settled next to me. And no I did not give them an embassy, their captials where 7 hexes away from mine. I admit, I'm so used to maxing Tradition and Liberty, they are always my go to to policies, becausce at warlord, you can get that bonus settler and worker early enough to make them worthwhile. Honestly, the only really good things in liberties path are the +1 production and the reductions in the cost for future policies, but they are less useful than others. I have no problem with income though. Oh i may drop to -1 or -2 gold for a few turns here and there, but I always have enough in the bank it doesn't matter. Going to give it another try though! At least knowing what I'm doing wrong will help me avoid it before!
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Apr 25, 2014 04:01
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OpenlyEvilJello posted:I'll mention a few things that stood out to me. Yeah, I think the fact that he has so little of the map revealed is really bizarre. Why did you not build any scouts? Why did you not build any caravels? Whenever you send units exploring the world, they can discover natural wonders (an instant +1 happiness) and also discover city states, who can then in turn contribute happiness back to you by virtue of you completing quests for them. It's 1760 and you've discovered a grand total of 3 city states. Exploring the map and discovering things is honestly my favourite part of the game. edit: ^^^^ So you're spending turns trying and failing to build wonders, that's going to hurt you. Also you can get stuff like iron from having city states as allies. If you discovered more city states, you'd have more opportunities for allies. NZAmoeba fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Apr 25, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2014 04:06
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redreader posted:Denouncement is hilarious. I can just picture the egyptians or whoever saying: I like to imagine it's the other civs accusing me of having a secret program to produce weapons of mass destruction.
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Apr 25, 2014 04:31
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twistedmentat posted:snipped for brevity You don't need iron at all, even, unless you're planning on a war around the Renaissance (frigates) or have a kick-rear end UU that needs iron (which you still only need if you're going to war). Re: happiness, just to clarify, you know you only need one copy of a luxury to get the happiness bonus from it, right? Any extras you're free to sell or trade for new kinds. You can try posting a screenshot of the happiness tooltip; maybe someone will spot something there. Re: growth, from the little snapshot we have in the thread, your growth problem looks like unhappiness. As a couple people have mentioned, you need surplus happiness to grow into or your growth rate plummets. Since each citizen causes one unhappiness by default, you need to keep looking for more sources of happiness as the game progresses in order to keep growing acceptably.
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Apr 25, 2014 05:34
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City-states are a powerful asset and it's extremely important to get a good amount of scouting done to meet them. The free gold in the early game can shave turns off buying your first settler, and a lucky quest with some barbarian defense can buy you a good chunk of food or culture for an earlier snowball. Starting in the mid-game, you'll have enough income to start buying allies, and having met a variety of city-states lets you patch up your weaknesses. They are guaranteed to provide strategic or luxury resources, on top of their specialty bonus. Patronage is a really good policy tree as a result, with the bonuses synergizing quite well to fuel even more city-state buyouts. With the 20 resting point policy, you'll start getting a good amount of free stuff just for incidentally completing quests (even if you can't afford to maintain Ally status, ~30 turns of Friendly is nothing to sneeze at). I find that Commerce is also a very good tree to combine with the Patronage investment: more money to spend on city-states, more happiness from luxuries, plus saving money on rush-buys which you can reinvest into even more city-states. I wouldn't take the full Commerce tree because the finisher is not great, but the individual policies are mostly very good. Looking at your game, twistedmentat, you're sitting on 1820 gold. If you had more of the map explored, you could spend 1k right now and pick up a bunch of happiness from a Mercantile city-state. That'd get you out of the happiness gutter to immediately start growing and powering up. You have an empty trade route slot, which could be more food or gold. Get rid of the land caravan if you're not using it to pump your capital with food and trade it for a cargo ship for more overseas cash. Send some of that standing army over to kill those barb camps for free money. Going both Tradition and Liberty isn't completely terrible since you're Poland with free policies, but it's definitely a weaker option. I feel like you're a little too heavy on mines - all those riverside hills should absolutely be farms, because with Civil Service those become self-sustaining production. Looks like a lot of unimproved forests, the riverside ones should be chopped for farms unless you have a plan for them.
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Apr 25, 2014 06:42
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NZAmoeba posted:Yeah, I think the fact that he has so little of the map revealed is really bizarre. Why did you not build any scouts? Why did you not build any caravels? Whenever you send units exploring the world, they can discover natural wonders (an instant +1 happiness) and also discover city states, who can then in turn contribute happiness back to you by virtue of you completing quests for them. It's 1760 and you've discovered a grand total of 3 city states. I had 4 scout units, but they were blocked by other civs and killed by barbarians. I was going to start building caravels as soon as Krakow (I think) was finished its bank. I normally have mosptof the map explored by now, but this was a lovely setup. And is there anything wrong with building a wonder when everything else worth building has been built? I'm going to try again, using what has been said. THis is my take away from the advice - Max Tradition, then patronage, then rationalism - only build new cities when there' 4+ happiness - be best buds with as many SC as possible - Don't worry about Iron. Other stuff I know, but situation of that map made it harder to do it.
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Apr 25, 2014 06:42
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twistedmentat posted:I had 4 scout units, but they were blocked by other civs and killed by barbarians. I was going to start building caravels as soon as Krakow (I think) was finished its bank. I normally have mosptof the map explored by now, but this was a lovely setup. And is there anything wrong with building a wonder when everything else worth building has been built? 4 Scouts is probably overkill. 1-2 Scouts is generally my recommendation, since you'll also be scouting with your Warrior. If it looks like you're on a smaller landmass, you can pull the Warrior back for home defense, but otherwise just keep him out there as Warriors aren't very good against barbarians. Don't automate until later in the game, because manual control will let you cover ground much more efficiently to avoid getting blocked by borders or bogged down by barbarians. Expect your scouts to die far from home, surrounded and likely cold and/or wet. Unless you think you can nab that wonder, you're almost always better off building something else. Upgrade your military and beat on Dido for a while - you can't afford to conquer her due to your happiness problems, but bloody her nose a bit and you can get free stuff in a peace deal.
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Apr 25, 2014 07:00
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Yea, normally I manually move them around early game, but later as they get further afield i automate them. Also automate ships. What wonders are worth getting. Ones I try to get are ; great library, oracle, pyramids (but without liberty i won't worry about), Sistine Chapel, and machu pichu. Later wonders either i'm going to get them or not, I don't really worry. Except CN tower that thing just makes your culture go nuts.
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Apr 25, 2014 07:12
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| # ? May 29, 2024 00:48 |
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Those are too many wonders to try for. Your early game may be weak because you're focusing too much on early wonders. Try skipping Great Library, it's good but on later difficulties you can't really get it reliably so it's good to get in the habit of learning how to play without it. In fact, try not building any early game wonders at all. Focus instead on building key buildings like libraries/granaries/national college/guilds and also trade units. Making sure those are built as fast as possible is often more beneficial than building the oracle or great library.twistedmentat posted:I had 4 scout units, but they were blocked by other civs and killed by barbarians. I was going to start building caravels as soon as Krakow (I think) was finished its bank. I normally have mosptof the map explored by now, but this was a lovely setup. And is there anything wrong with building a wonder when everything else worth building has been built? And make sure you're trading excess luxuries for the AI's excess luxuries to increase your happiness. I think happiness management might be your biggest issue. The reason you can't grow much is that you're going into unhappiness too often, which severely limits growth. And make sure you're not only building lots of farms, but using them as well. The default city focus likes to strike a balance between food, gold, and production. Set it to food focus or manually assign your citizens instead. Oh, and if you have a big army after a war, disband most of it, keeping only the most experienced units. Dr. Video Games 0031 fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Apr 25, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2014 07:15
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